21 A Look at Biological and Machine Perception R. L. Gregory

The study of perception is divided among many established sciences: physiology, experimental psychology and machine intelligence; with several others making contributions. But each of the contributing sciences tends to have its own concepts, and ways of considering problems. Each -- to use T. S. Kuhn's term (1962) -- has its own'paradigm', within which its science is respectable. This can make co-operation difficult, as misunderstandings (and even distrust) can be generated by paradigm differences. This paper is a plea to consider perceptual phenomena from many points of view, and to consider whether a general paradigm for perception might be found.